Project: Fiesta charm bracelet, part 2

Here’s part 2 of the instructions for my Fiesta charm bracelet. Wow, this took forever to finish! It’s a great summer bracelet, though, so I think it’s still worth putting up here.

(Gloria Ferniz/Express-News)

The hat that inspired it all …

(Merrisa Brown/MySA.com)

Close-up of the bracelet from part 1 without charms.

Now, if you didn’t make the bracelet in part 1, you can find the instructions here, or I guess you could use a charm bracelet you already have.

This is a great project if you’re just starting out with wire work, because it gives you the opportunities to be creative with wire and practice your skills over and over and over and … you get the idea. If you’re not comfortable working with wire, I suggest you practice on plain copper wire before starting with the colored wire, so you don’t waste it.

I didn’t use literal charms for my bracelet; instead, I made my own charms (I guess technically they’re dangles) with pearls, and some Czech glass butterfly beads I had lying around.

I tried to make this a random pattern, since Fiesta colors cover the whole spectrum. But since I have a lot of trouble with random patterns, I used a pearl mix from Fire Mountain Gems, and since the hole sizes on pearls can vary, I was forced to use certain pearls based on whether they would slide onto 22 gauge wire. Then, I layered in glass butterfly beads. As always with projects, click the “More” link below to get the instructions.

I spent the better part of this weekend trying to make antennae for each butterfly … but it didn’t work out so well. I wanted the antennae to hold still (not slide around), and I couldn’t figure out how to do it without running two lengths of wire through the holes in the butterflies, and the wire was too thick to do that. And I haven’t been working with wire too long, but if you try to use 24 or smaller gauge to make shapes and stuff, it doesn’t work out too well. So I gave up, and there are very tiny loops holding my butterflies on their wires. If anyone has an idea on how to make antennae (because bugs should always have antennae), leave it below as a comment.

I love everything I used for this project, but I especially love the colored wire by Artistic Wire. It’s easy to work with, and the color doesn’t come off as easily as it does on other colored copper wire. Unfortunately, though, it only comes in 22, 24 or 26 gauge — a limited number of sizes. I’m going to write a nice letter to the company though, and tell them I think larger size would be awesome!

Note: If you’re more comfortable working with pieces of wire, you can cut off a piece to work with, but if you can work off the wire it’s better.

Instructions

1. First, separate out the pearls and butterflies you want to use for your bracelet. I used 6 large butterflies, 24 small butterflies and about 60 pearls. After you’ve selected the pearls you want to use, try sliding each on the 22 gauge wire to see if the hole is big enough. If you can’t get the wire all the way through a pearl, put that one back and try another one. By the time you’re finished, you should have a pretty good mix of colors.

2. Next, make each butterfly into a dangle. For my dangles, I used the same color wire as pearl or butterfly, but you can mix the colors if you want to. To do this, thread each butterfly, bottom first, on a piece of 22 gauge wire (or work off the coil), and make a simple loop above the butterfly with the very end of your round-nose pliers and trim the excess wire. Then, push the butterfly against the loop, and at the bottom of the butterfly, make a larger, wrapped loop. Trim the excess wire, and use your flat-nose pliers to carefully (CAREFULLY! You don’t want to nick the color off!) tuck in any ends that are sticking out. Repeat for each butterfly. (For instructions on how to make simple loops and wrapped loops, visit the “How to” page on BeadStylemag.com.)

3. After that comes the fun part! Each pearl needs to be made into a dangle as well, but instead of doing them uniform, do every one different, and really practice your wire working skills. Basically, I did four different shapes at the end of each dangle — a simple loop (same as above), a curly loop/spiral, a curly triangle and a squiggle — and then finished each pearl with a wrapped loop to hang it by. If you haven’t worked with wire before, here are some simple instructions on how to do each shape:

• Curly loop/spiral: To make a curly loop, grab the end of your wire with the tip of your flat-nose pliers. Make sure wire is only showing on one side of the pliers. Wrap the wire all the way around the jaws of the pliers. Then loosen you grasp on the pliers, and carefully ease the wire off the end. To make the curly loop into a spiral, place the loop in your nylon-jawed pliers, and wrap the wire around itself until your spiral is the size you want it.

• Curly triangle: Start by making a curly loop. When your loop is finished, place your flat-nose pliers at the top of the loop, and bend the wire at an angle toward the loop until the wire touches the loop. Move your pliers to the new top of the loop, and bend toward the loop again. Move your pliers to the new, new top of the loop and bend toward the loop again. Now, you should have a triangle. To “spiral” your triangle, place it in your nylon-jawed pliers and wrap the wire around itself.

• Squiggle: Start by making a curly loop. Then, place your round-nose pliers at the top of the loop. With the pliers’ jaws slightly open, wrap the wire around each side of the pliers, in a sort of figure eight. Then loosen you grasp on the pliers, and carefully ease the wire off the end. Reposition the pliers with one side in the last wrap, and wrap the wire around the other side of the pliers. Continually reposition the pliers to make your squiggle longer.

Don’t get discouraged if your loops, triangles and squiggles don’t turn out great the first time. A big plus about this project is that you do these things over and over again, so you get practice.

4. After you’ve finished all your dangles, now it’s time to attach them to the bracelet. I only attached dangles to the 12 bare copper links in the center, not the two on the end acting as part of the clasp or the blue-colored connectors. On my bracelet, each of those links has five pearl dangles, two small butterflies, and I alternated the larger butterflies. Be sure, when you open the links, to put dangles on each side of the link, so the bracelet fills out. To mix up the color, I alternated the hot colors (reds, pinks, yellows and oranges) and the cool colors (blues, greens and purples) on each link.

After you’ve put on all the dangles, you’re done!

Options

• Try alternating the wire colors with the pearl and butterfly colors. Also, you could try using shades of the same color, or different beads.

Merrisa Brown

3 Responses

Again, I forgot to mention that you can hammer the ends of the dangles to make the wire a little stronger and less suspectible to bending. Simply put it on a bench block, and give it a couple good whacks with a chasing hammer.

If you don’t have a chasing hammer or bench block though, hammering isn’t necessary.

You’ve done it again! What a treat! Thank you so much for sharing this with us, you are a real gem! This bracelet is so cool, and I would not have thought of it myself (I thought I knew everything!). Congratulations!